Bread that Breaks You Right Back

Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion by Sara Miles

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars

The subtitle of Sara Miles' spiritual memoir is "a Radical Conversion" and those two words, along with the amazingly entrancing and appetizing peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a cross marked through it that occupies the book cover, pretty much say everything there is to say about this profound and utterly simple book. Miles' story is Radical because she is radical, but also because her revelation is so entirely basic. She's drawn into Christian faith through food- the most basic sustaining force for humanity other than blood and air I guess. And her Conversion converted me, over and over, because it wasn't about her becoming someone new, different, more- it was about becoming less, giving up what got in the way of what she understood as the Gospel: "feed my sheep".

This leftist lesbian journalist with a passion for kitchens and Latin American liberation has written the truest account of what Christian life is and should be, that I have ever read- the gospel according to Sara Miles sounds more like Jesus than anything I've yet to encounter- seriously. (Okay, so maybe not including the Bible, but frankly, she gives the Book of John some serious competition). So my statements sound hyperbolic, but I am not trying to be. This book will disrupt your comfort level no matter how liberal or conservative you are. The call is clear- communion means unity because of difference, not in-spite of it, and the primal gift of sharing food with one another may be the most visual and potent expression of love on the planet.

Yep- this book- I liked.

View all my reviews.